Board games

Christmas is the time for board games; imagine the happy family sitting around the table playing games and having a jolly time. Almost too sweet, so offset it with a some glasses of G&T to take away the worst sweetness.

We have a new board game in the family, called Retro. Its similar to Trivial Pursuit but the categories are decades: 1950s to 1990s. It also asks you to draw up lists of a common topic and you get points if you list the same answer - so you need to guess what your parents think is the most boring kids TV program ever, or the world's most famous nose (where I said Barry Manilow and my parents Olof Palme, I should know better but there you go.)

Good, wholesome fun for the whole family, excluding anyone born in 00's - which is good. Lets exclude them and give them something to aim for; when they have read up enough on the history of the last 50 years they can join in and we can laugh at their lack of knowledge of e.g shoulder pads.

Lady of Leisure

So far this week I have been visiting my sister and her family, being fed and entertained out in the sticks where they live. Today I am meeting Eva at a cafe in town, for some gossiping and information sharing activities. After that I am meeting J to do some shopping with and then out for dinner with J and K.

Tomorrow I am heading out to suburbia to see A and A after which I have no further plans but am sure something will come up.

It is a hard life but someone has to do it.

Family fun

EL and I invented a new game last night. Go to a nice bar, order whatever cocktails you fancy and then try and work out how to make it at home.

We are going to spend Christmas trying to replicate their Hot Mint Toddy and the Ginger and Rum tea. Should be fun.

Michael Caine

JD and I both woke up at 6 today, not because we had to but because we are both heading off today. So of course we had lots of to do's in our head that we needed to deal with rather than sleeping that extra hour.

Not that we got up, instead we spent an hour lying in bed chatting. Which was very nice until we got onto the topic of Michael Caine, who was a guest at Parkinson the other night. He said he has done more than 100 films in his life, 39 since he retired. So the quiz for the day is - name 10 films with Michael Caine - no cheating looking it up on the internet.

We got to 8, then had to run downstairs, go on the internet and spent 15 minutes saying "oh that one, of course!"

Try it, fun fun fun for the whole family.

Kitchen

Woke JD with breakfast in bed, beef sausages with scrambled eggs, coffee and pomegranet juice. Needed him up and atom so he could help me rip out the kitchen. It is now done. Reccon DIY is best done on a hangover.

Something crept into my mouth and died there

Last night we had our Christmas party, at Metropole, the Southern FM disco. It started bad and got worse before we all got drunk enough not to notice and started having fun.

The venue was a massive room filled with round table, most of them with wine bottles on but not ours, our beloved employer had decided the food and venue was enough of a treat for us so vino we had to buy ourselves. This would ahve been ok if 1) the plonk they sold for £15 a bottle hadnt been from Tescos bargain bucket section and 2) if the serving staff had been at least somewhat competet. As it was I ordered the first two bottles, waiting 10 min at the bar for the 8 staff to deal with the 6 customers. Later Mikey went up and ordered more, tried using his card (they had a machine) only to discover the slightly less than clever staff hadn't plugged it in, so they ran off with his card somewhere else. He did get it back.

The starter took about 45 minute to come out, in drips and drabs, the main took about the same and it became obvious there was no plan or structure to the service, two out of 10 on our table got food quite promptly but the remaining 8 were left waiting for an extra 15 minutes. Maybe a ploy to make sure someone on each table had food so we all kept the hope up?

Food was not good, but luckily by now our tastebuds had been killed off by the cheap plonk.

Finally dancing started and we boogied til 1 when we got kicked out.

Oh and there was a photographer there who took group photos you could then buy for £10 (with part of the fee going to charity, I reccon about 5p). This was quite amusing when you saw the girls in too short skirts and too high heels posing and poting. Especially the girl who decided to kick her leg up showing us all her nice underwear and everything else a g string doesnt cover.

Christmas wish list

What do you want for Christmas? Malin asked me to make a list, cause she had been asked in turn. I think you should write one too.

I want:

• a builder offer that is reasonable for the kitchen, scheduled for Jan and given to me by end tomorrow
• an urge to do sport, so I will start running, selecting active holiday and search for new hobbies involving excertion
• Glogg, spritglogg ideally, Blossa obviously
• that JD gets a weeks extension in Bas Vegas so he doesnt come home moping for a week
• that JD gets a job in Sweden next year
• that I get a job in NY next year
• a cure for Alzheimer so T Pratchett can keep writing for many more years to come

HP

Apologies for shaky photo, just got too excited.

Met Harry Potter in the reception of work, he was doing baloon art for kids, I of course kicked them all away to get to him and have a photo taken.

Presents

As I am more or less done with my Christmas shopping I was much cheered when I realised I had to go out and get 'thank you' gifts for some of my collegues. Popping into Waitrose I had initially planned to go for wine and chocolate but the present section caught my eye so I bought one of each more or less. My favourite was the hexagonal box with Christmas teas, with the "12 Nights of Christmas" printed across the tea bags.

Shopping and wrapping presents on company time with company encouragement is a good thing.

Cooking

Tonight we are off on our first Christmas party with work, its a nicer one than the next one because its only for our little project group. We are going to cook food together and then eat it (together of course). It sounds terribly communal and communist, but I suspect it will be more a competition in capitalist spirit than anything nice and soft-clothed 70's styled.

As we are in London we are staying in a hotel overnight, which is nice because you dont have to get on the train tonight. But it does mean that tomorrow morning we are all going to have to leave for work extra early to take into account the longer journey. But we found out when checking in that breakfast included, so stomach permitting there will be a fry up for brekkie at 7 before taking the train back to suburbia.

A la M Uggla

I am feeling sick now. Shouldnt have had those last 4 profiteroles.

I love our cleaner

Came back from shopping with Barb. The house is clean and there is a two page letter from the cleaner, interesting reading. Promise to save it for EL to read.

Then I walked into the kitchen and found a Christmas card aaaand Chocolate covered orange profiteroles. I have been staring, while drooling, at and advert for these each day for two weeks. They are just as nice as I thought they would be. I have had 4 so far. I want more. Will just have a couple more...

I love the cleaner.

Unlimited Smugness

• I am almost done with the Christmas shopping, just getting some last things tonight.
• I have sent all the Christmas cards.
• I have decorated the house.
• I have test packed all the presents I am bringing home
• I have got the outfit for the Christmas party

Conference calls

I seem to spend my time on endless conference calls. Its ok if I am leading them or am required to take an active part. When I say 'ok' I mean that I normally am able to muddle my way through when I loose concentration and then get a question to answer. The secrecy button is always good to blame.

My main issue is when I sit on calls and I have little or nothing to add. I should be listening but somehow fade away either into daydreaming or start working on somehting else. But mainly I start reading blogs, search for friends names on Google to see what I find, plan holidays, find interesting food to cook or at least drool over, follow links randomly through the internet jungle, read BBC news stories etc etc etc

I wish we had a less reliable phone network so I could blame the line.

In school I used sit with a book in my lap secrently reading while the class went on around me. What I am doing now is just the grown up version of that. Less chance to get caught as on a conference call at least noone can see me. Dont like video conferencing, I like Hedwig have too much to hide.